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Mortgage Payoff Update – First of 2012

Mortgage Payoff Update

As I proclaimed, lol, my husband and I are attempting to pay off our mortgage within 6 years or less – specifically, by the end of 2013. My personal goal is to shave another year off of that – so by the end of 2012. In order to stay on track, I’ll be posting updates here as we make progress. I have really stunk on the updates, but here’s what we have accomplished so far:

Payoff Amount on our goal start date (10/26/2011) – $62,634

Payoff Amount as of 1/8/2012 – $42,728.52

Our basic overpayment on 12/8/11 helped hit a bit off of the total, but the big bite came from the $6000 principal payment on 12/31/11. I’m hoping to make similar hits on the total over the next few months.

Quick Background

Let me get down to the nitty gritty. You all probably already know how much I hate debt – specifically, I cannot stand paying a speck of interest. Since my husband and I were able to start off after college without school debt, the next obstacles were mainly cars and to avoid credit card debt. We decided to keep living super cheap, so we’ve have never carried a running balance on our cards despite the fact that we do use them for most of our expenses. As for our cars, we did have Chevy Aveo debt from 2005-2007 and we had Toyota Prius debt from 2008-2010. We now have an ING savings account that we fund with those two payments every month so we will hopefully never have car debt again. That leaves us with the mortgage we first took on in 2007…

My General Plan of Attack for 2012

All of that said, the last $43,000 of our mortgage is annoying me. Alot. It’s the last thing in our lives that dictates how our money is used. After this, we will have 100% control over every cent we have. That is going to feel AMAZING.

Our plan of attack for the last 4 months was to continue living on our budget and we were splitting the monthly extra – 75% towards the mortgage and 25% towards investments. That has been working big time, but Mr. BFS and I actually discussed our progress and have come up with a new plan.

We want this thing killed off by June 2012. That means we want it dead in 6 months or less. To accomplish this, my husband actually suggested that we put 100% of the monthly extra towards paying off the house until it is completely done. So from here on out, the mortgage is being attacked without mercy. We will own our home by June 2012 or else.

Please cross your fingers for us – we’ll need it. 🙂

How do you feel about mortgage debt?

25 Comments

Jenna on at

Do you know if you have a prepayment penalty? I’ve heard of these, especially if you have refinanced.

Would hate for you guys to have to give more money to the bank!

Jai Catalano on at

Wow I wish I could say I had only 43K left on my mortgage. Congrats and can’t wait until you have 100 % control to inspire us more.

Niki on at

I am so amazed! I almost can’t believe that it, but I am sure it will happen! To have your home paid off in 6 months is going to be fun to watch. I am looking forward to these updates.

Corey @ Passive Income to Retire on at

DANG! Nice goal – with your income coming in like it has been, I would bet it’s gone by March 2012. You don’t even need luck…

NoTrustFund on at

Good Luck, Crystal. I hate all debt and as soon as we are in our ‘forever house’ I hope to be mortgage free as quickly as possible. With interest rates so low, everyone keeps saying it’s a great time to have a mortgage. But nothing says FREEDOM to me like not having any debt.

Do you think this is your ‘forever house’ or will you guys need a bigger house in a couple of years?

Michelle @ Making Sense of Cents on at

Wow that’s such an amazing goal! I’m sure you’ll beat it.

KC @ PsychoMoney on at

Way to go. It is such an awesome feeling to not have a mortgage.

Jeffrey Trull on at

With the way things have been going, it seems more likely than not that you’ll be able to meet his goal! Very exciting!

Amanda L Grossman on at

Good luck! That will be quite exciting.

Newlyweds on a Budget on at

That sounds absolutely amazing!! Good luck to you!

also–i love the idea of contributing to a car account even when you don’t have a car payment. that sounds awesome!

Denise @ The SIngle Saver on at

Wow, I am so proud of you. I am aiming for a 2012 payoff, too… if not 2012 it will definitely be 2013. As much as I love being a homeowner, I have hated having a mortgage and from day one vowed I would do whatever necessary to get rid of it.

shanendoah on at

C believes the best retirement plan is to have a paid off house, so our goal is certainly to pay off our mortgage early. I would suspect that once he actually starts earning money again (or at least stops costing us money by being back in school) we’ll really attack our mortgage debt, as it is our debt with the highest interest rate, now that my student loan APR has dropped due to cnsecutive on-time payments. Still, that’s at least 18 months away, so for now, I settle for paying a little extra on each debt and not taking on any more.

Crystal @ BFS on at

@Jenna, I checked before we signed the papers – no prepayment penalties. 🙂

@Jai, I really can’t wait either and thanks for using the word “inspire” associated with me, lol. 🙂

@Niki, glad to hear someone will be tuning in, yay! I should have about one a month.

@Corey, we are aiming for June simply because taxes take 33-40%…

@NoTrustFund, this isn’t our forever house but we shouldn’t be moving in the next 5 years either. Our home has 3 bedrooms – the master and the two we converted into an office for each of us. So if we have a kid ever, it can only live in my office for a couple of years before we’ll need to find a slightly bigger home so he/she will have a room. But more to the point, our “forever” home will need to be a one story house since bad knees and joints run on both sides of our family.

@Michelle, thanks!

@KC, I bet!

@Jeffrey, I really hope so!

@Amanda, thank you!

@Newlyweds on a Budget, we’ll be doing that for the house too. That way we can buy our next home in cash or at least have a big sum to put down. We may be renting out our current home in the future…

@Denise, whoo-hoo! I’ll cross my fingers for you for 2012. 🙂

@shanendoah, yeah, while Mr. BFS was getting his masters, almost all debt payoff goals went on hold for us, lol.

kathleen on at

I’m terrified of mortgage debt and happy to be a renter. Good work!

Fig on at

Nice goal! I’m sure you will hit it.

Steve Mertz on at

Great way to start the new year! Congratulations Crystal-great idea!!

Jeff @ Sustainable Life Blog on at

Good luck crystal! It will be awesome owning your home once and for all!

ODWO on at

Bravo! (Payiong off the house) As far as investments go, your paying that off is …. an investment, and great collateral for the next big “thing.” You;ll have plenty of time (and extra money) to fund more investments. Especially when debt free. WTGo.

Awesome. 🙂

David Hunter on at

You got this!

Evan on at

I have nothing but faith in you!

Jessica @ Budget for Health on at

That is awesome! The hubs & I are having the same annoyance with the $9,000 left of student loans to pay off. We hope to have it finished off by April! I’m rooting for you!

My Own Advisor on at

Awesome stuff. Slay that financial dragon! Will include this in my Weekend Reading roundup later this week for sure!

Mark

Daniel on at

Good luck with your goal. Debt is so annoying after a while.

Anna @ Good Cents Savings on at

WOW! That is awesome – congrats on making such incredible progress so far, and good luck with keeping it up through your goal.

I love the idea of adding the car payment amounts to savings. A lot of people talk about doing that, but I’m guessing many fewer actually do. Adding to my to-do list…